Leviticus 26 · The Lantern

Additional Blessings of Obedience

You shall make you no idols nor carved image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall you set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down to it: for I am the LORD your God.

You shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.

If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;

Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

And your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and the vintage shall reach to the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

"And you shall pursue your enemies". What "enemies", except "the devil" himself "and his angels" and the malignant spirits and "the unclean demons"? We shall pursue them not only that we may drive them away from ourselves, but also from others whom they assail, if we keep the divine precepts. "You shall pursue", He says, "your enemies, and they shall fall before you by death".

"You will rout your enemies." Of what enemies do we speak, except the devil himself and his angels? We rout them not only by driving them from our own hearts, but we repel them far away from others whom they disturb or attack or overcome. We do this by our advice or reproof or prayer, if we preserve the divine precepts. Thus through death the enemy falls in our sight.

And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

For I will have respect to you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.

And you shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.

For we eat with blessing the old things, the prophetic words and the old things of the old things, the words of the law. And, when the new and evangelical words came, living according to the gospel, we bring forth the old things of the letter from before the new. He sets his tabernacle in us, fulfilling the promise which he spoke, "I will dwell among them and walk in them."

For just as the teachings of the new and old Testaments should come together, as it is written: "Consume the old things of the ancients, and remove the old things from the face of the new ones." Let the knowledge of the patriarchs be food for us, let the soul feast on the oracles of the prophets: let the inner being be nourished by such sustenance.

And we eat the oldest of the old [grain] when we retain in our hearts the sweet memory of the old commandment which was given to the human race from the beginning, by loving the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul and all our strength, and by loving our neighbor as ourselves.

And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.

And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?

It does not seem to me that God promises this, that He will walk in the land of the Jews, but that, if anyone should deserve to be of so pure a heart as to be capable of God, in him God says that He "walks". — "And you shall be to me a people".

God will be the source of every satisfaction, more than any heart can rightly crave, more than life and health, food and wealth, glory and honor, peace and every good—so that God, as St. Paul said, "may be all in all." He will be the consummation of all our desiring—the object of our unending vision, of our unlessening love, of our unwearying praise.

I am the LORD your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, so that you should not be their slaves; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.

Punishments for Disobedience

But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments;

And if you shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that you will not do all my commandments, but that you break my covenant:

I also will do this to you; I will even appoint over you terror, wasting disease, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

And I will set my face against you, and you shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and you shall flee when none pursues you.

And if you will not yet for all this listen to me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as bronze:

And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

And if you walk contrary to me, and will not listen to me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.

And if you will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary to me;

Then will I also walk contrary to you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when you are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied.

And if you will not for all this listen to me, but walk contrary to me;

Then I will walk contrary to you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall you eat.

And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors.

And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell in it shall be astonished at it.

And I will scatter you among the pagans, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lies desolate, and you be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths.

As long as it lies desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your Sabbaths, when you dwelt upon it.

And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursues.

And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursues: and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

And you shall perish among the pagans, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

God Remembers Those Who Repent

If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary to me;

And that I also have walked contrary to them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:

Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her Sabbaths, while she lies desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes.

And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God.

But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the pagans, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.

These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

Leviticus26

Additional Blessings of Obedience

Punishments for Disobedience

God Remembers Those Who Repent